Bard

“ The terrible situations in which we find the Bard, as the drama unfolds, betoken not only a powerful imagination, but also an intensity of feeling which enabled him to realise the conceptions of such imagination. We follow the Bard and his heavenly guide through all their perils with breathless attention; the demons and the damned he so clothes with flesh and blood that our hatred or our sympathy is instantly stirred; his World is palpitating with life, his Hell, with its gloom and glare, is an awful, haunting dream. ”

“ I love the high trees, that afford a protection above,
And a bard that composes, without earning anger;
I love not him that causes contention;
He that speaks ill of the skilful shall not possess mead. ”

“ When the tapers burn clear and the goblet shines bright,
In the hall of his chief on a festival night,
I have smiled at the glance of his rapturous eye,
While the brim of the goblet laugh'd back in reply;
⁠Then say not the Bard has turned old.
When he sings of the valorous deeds that were done,
By his clan or his chief in the days that are gone,
His strains then are various—now rapid—now slow,
As he mourns for the dead or exults o'er the foe ”

“ Old bard, old bard, from Tir-na-noge where thou, perchance wrapt by that beauty which called thee from earth, singest immortal songs, would that one lightning of they spirit could pierce the hearts now thronged with dread, might issue from lips which dare not speak. ”

“ Numerous sagas and legends, which live in the minds of all, yield abundant material for filling up blanks; and thus the bard’s narrative flows on like a calm stream whose springs never dry up: it is only necessary to keep it in the proper metre to make him a poet for ever. Even this is made easy to him; for every bard accompanies his recitative on the three-stringed Kirghiz zither, and as he links on each measure to the next by playing on this, he can make the interlude last until the next verse has taken shape in his mind. ”

“ Here is a twilight world of intellectual notions and poetic motives wafted hither and thither on the blast of the Bard’s frenzy. The Bard himself, a commanding figure, stands on a shelf of rock surveying the vortex, while he smites music from his harp. Below, a king and queen and their horses are overwhelmed in a Stygian stream. All [Pg 165] is dark, with a strange gleam and shimmer here and there, like jewels and burnished silver seen through a purple veil. ”

“ Inconstant beats the manly heart—
⁠The present Bard's extremely so!
Wit, Wisdom, Strength, and Valour meet
(The Bard amongst them) , at thy feet
⁠To kneel in homage, as of old;
Yet turn a rival Queen to greet,
⁠Whose crown is of a purer gold!
Preen as thou wilt thy feathers fine,
A gift is hers, by grace divine,
⁠Even more potent to enthral,
O Bird of Paradise, than thine,
⁠The hearts and souls of one and all! ”

“ Through the grim nights and the cloudy days, with stern hope, the bard and warrior wait but for one heroic deed. The earth is a vast arena,—a sand plain or heath for heroic actions. The bard is sufficiently great and true to himself to make his thought take place of everything else. There is for the time no other philosophy, no other poetry. ”

“ Thus adorned she was led to the centre of the circle, and supported there by two aged priests, while the bards chanted the following invocation to the sun:—
FIRST BARD.
"See, thy destined victim see,
Bright, and chaste, and pure as thee,
Let this sinless virgin please thee,
Sinful man could ne'er appease thee."
SECOND BARD.
"Round her brows the wild flowers see,
Emblems of thy purity—
Touch'd by mortal's fingers never;—
Round her breast the oak survey,
Which like thee can ne'er decay—
Innocence endures for ever."
THIRD BARD.
"Spirit! ”

“ The bard that paints imagination's powers,
And him whose song revives departed hours,
Once more an ancient tragic bard recall,
In boldness of design surpassing all.
These names when rightly read, a name [make] known
Which gathers all their glories in its own. ”

“ You may be a poet, for I have no experience of them, but as I am a man thou art not a bard! You a bard! You the likeness and descendant of Howell ap Griffith and a hundred other Saxon gleemen! You one of the guild of Gryffith ap Conan—you a scop or a skald!—why, boy, they could write better stuff than thou canst though they had been drunk for half a day! You a stirrer of passions—you a minstrel—you a tightener of the strong sinews of warrior hearts!—fie! ”

“ A Scottish Bard, proud of the name, and whose highest ambition is to sing in his country’s service, where shall he so properly look for patronage as to the illustrious names of his native land: those who bear the honours and inherit the virtues of their ancestors? The poetic genius of my country found me, as the prophetic bard Elijah did Elisha—at the plough, and threw her inspiring mantle over me. ”

“ The harp he shall never part with.”
“When a song is called for, the Bard President should begin; the first song shall be addressed to God, the next to the king. The Domestic Bard shall sing to the queen and royal household.”
The bard therefore in ancient times performed important functions. In peace he delighted his lord with songs of chivalry, love and friendship. In war he accompanied his prince to battle, and recited the might and prowess of his leader and the martial virtue of his hosts. ”

“ One summer’s day, the Bard ascends one of the mountains of Wales, and gazing a long while at the beautiful scene, falls asleep. He dreams and finds himself among the fairies, whom he approaches and requests permission to join. They snatch him up forthwith and fly off with him over cities and realms, lands and seas, until he begins to fear for his life. They come to a huge castle—Castle Delusive, where an Angel of light appears and rescues him from their hands. ”

“ While lo! with his hand on his harp the old bard is undone!
One false note, then he stammers, he sobs like a child, he is failing,
And the song that so bravely began ends in discord and wailing.
II
Can it be it is they who make merry, 't is they taunting him?
Shall the sun, then, be scorned by the planets, the tree by the limb!
These bardlings, these mimics, these echoes, these shadows at play,
While he only is real;—they shine but as motes in his day!
III
All that in them is best is from him; all they know he has taught ”

“ I was laboriously pounding the piano with one finger when I heard Bard's heavy step on the verandah. The next moment he came into the room, a big figure of a man in a tussore silk suit with a Panama hat. Somehow the sight of him made me feel easier in my mind. That sublime sense of superiority, which we British suck in with our mother's milk, is a heartening thing when you find it in your fellow Britisher abroad thousands of miles from home. And John Bard, though, with his small pointed beard and rather pallid face, he looked like a Spaniard, was through and through British. ”

“ The world-honoured and time-honoured bard whose lines are quoted above habitually looked beneath the mere plausible surface of possibility, and from the deep insight thereby gained, often put forth oracles at opposition to the usual routine of thought and expectation, yet which the eternal experiences of life continue to endorse as truths. ”

“ Bards and Trouveurs.—The metallic force of primitive words makes the superiority of the remains of the rude ages. It costs the early bard little talent to chant more impressively than the later, more cultivated poets. His advantage is that his words are things, each the lucky sound which described the fact, and we listen to him as we do to the Indian, or the hunter, or miner, each of whom represents his facts as accurately as the cry of the wolf or the eagle tells of the forest or the air they inhabit. ”

“ Sometimes the bard sits down in sorrow, generally in a tap-room over an empty glass, and details the charms of the fair one who has wrought his woe; or sometimes, though rarely, it is one of the opposite sex, who has been driven from home by the curses of her kindred, and, sitting by the roadside, tells her tale of woe or despair. ”

“ The poor peasants to whom the still poorer bard applied for a supper and a lodging, had no relish for poetry; but they understood a joke, and the bard brought me forth for their entertainment; and, while my self-love was flattered by their hearty laughter, his wants were supplied by their generous hospitality. ”

“ To stir up the lagging or too peaceful chief was one of the prime duties of the bard; to address to him congratulations on his accession, or to bewail him when he died, was his official function; and to judge by the quantity of paper covered with these laudatory effusions and elegies, he performed his task with punctilious care. It was likely that he would do so, for the fees for a poem that gave satisfaction were substantial. We miss the family bard in these days; there is no one at hand to praise indifferently all that we do. ”

“ Our Poet introduces the only surviving Bard of that country in concert with the spirits of his murdered brethren, as prophetically denouncing woes upon the Conqueror and his posterity. The circumstances of grief and horror in which the Bard is represented, those of terror in the preparation of the votive web, and the mystic obscurity with which the prophecies are delivered, will give as much pleasure to those who relish this species of composition, as anything that has hitherto appeared in our language, the Odes of Dryden himself not excepted. ”

“ The Bard is carried away by sleep to chambers where some people are crying, others screaming, some talking deliriously, some uttering blasphemies in a feeble tone, others lying in great agony with all the signs of dying men, and some yielding up the ghost after uttering ‘a mighty shout.’ He is then conducted to a kind of limbo or Hades, where he meets with his prototype the Sleeping Bard of old and two other Welsh poets, one of whom is Taliesin, who is represented as watching the caldron of the witch Cridwen, even as he watched it in his boyhood. ”

“ Happy the bard (if that fair name belong
To him that blends no fable with his song)
Whose lines, uniting, by an honest art,
The faithful monitor's and poet's part,
Seek to delight, that they may mend mankind,
And, while they captivate inform the mind:
Still happier, if he till a thankful soil,
And fruit reward his honourable toil:
But happier far, who comfort those that wait
To hear plain truth at Judah's hallow'd gate:
Their language simple, as their manners meek,
No shining ornaments have they to seek; ”

“ Of course I don't know what way Bard headed, because he's got the girl with him, but I figure it this way: if a tenderfoot knows any part of the range at all, he'll go in that direction after he's in trouble. I've seen it work out before. So I think that Bard may have ridden straight for the old Drew place on the other side of the range. I know a short cut over the hills; we can reach there by morning. Kilrain, you'll go there with me. ”

“ After wandering from nook to nook, the Bard and his guide at last come to the court before the palace of the hellish regions, where, amidst thousands of horrible objects, the Bard perceives two feet of enormous magnitude, reaching to the roof of the whole infernal firmament, and inquires of his companion what those horrible things may be, but is told to be quiet for the present, as on his return he will obtain a full view of the monster to whom they belong, and is then conducted into the palace of Lucifer, who is about to hold a grand council. ”

“ Not in vain thy bright lamp the grave’s mystery shews,
The bard will obey thee with joy.”
Again there appeared in the dreams of the stripling
A being who held him intent;
It came as in flood come the high billows rippling,
Like billows when ebbing it went.
p. 19Though the look of an aged and slow female wearing,
It ran like the breezes in spring time careering,
Full often it vanished with threatening bearing. ”

“ The bard, the warrior, and the sage,
What win they but one lying page,
Where deeds and words, at hazard thrown,
May be or may not be their own? ”

“ For instance, if a king is represented as crossing the sea, we find that the causes leading to this, the place whence he set out, his companions, &c., are derived from the authorities, but the bard, at the same time, permits himself to give what seems to him to be an eloquent or beautiful description of the sea, and the appearance presented by the many-oared galleys. ”

“ Among the Welsh, indeed, as far back as history can pierce, we find an almost adoring reverence for the poet. To assume the function of a bard is to assume the function of the wisest man and best teacher in society; and therefore the utmost pains are taken with the young bard's education, and he is held bound to know all that can be known. One supreme name stands out among ancient Welsh bards, which I will ask you to remember in this connection. This is Taliesin, whose name signifies "Shining Brow." He is the hero of one of the following Mabinogion which bears his name for a title. ”

“ In quite a short time, oral tradition, in keeping of the bards, whose business is to purvey wonders, makes the champions perform easily, deeds which "the men of the present time" can only gape at; and every bard takes over the stock of tradition, not from original sources, but from the mingled fantasy and memory of the bard who came just before him. ”

“ The bards held a still higher rank: they preserved in their verses the mystic learning of the priests, the traditions of their race, and the great actions of their heroes. No sacrifice was duly offered without their sacred chant; they encouraged the warrior going to the field of combat, and received him on his return with notes of triumph. To live in heroic song was the aspiration of every Celtic warrior, and to the coward or traitor, there was no penalty so terrible as the denunciation of the sacred bards. ”